Life Lessons, Our Purpose in being Human

The Masters of the Spirit World

LIFE LESSONS,

OUR PURPOSE IN BEING HUMAN

Compiled by

Peter Watson Jenkins

Channeled by

Toni Ann Winninger

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 Celestial Voices, Inc.

Published by Smashwords for Celestial Voices, Inc.

13354 W. Heiden Circle, Lake Bluff, IL 60044

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012900053

ISBN: 978-09836016-6-1 (ebook)

FIRST EDITION

All Rights Reserved

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you want to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. See my other books at Smashwords.

CONTENTS

What are life lessons?

The expert commentators

SECTION 1: PROSPERITY

The Masters' Introduction.

Poverty: Self-imposed, Ecological, Societal.

Wealth: Born into wealth, Worked for wealth, Immediate wealth.

Creativity: Manifestation, Entrepreneurship.

Comments by Rachel Carson and Mohandas K. Gandhi.

SECTION 2: HEALTH

The Masters' Introduction.

Depression: Chemical: Genetic, Self-imposed.

Societal: Cultural gender pressure.

Handicaps: At birth, Later in life, Self-inflicted.

Illnesses: Transitory: Polio. Choice: Autoimmune system.

Terminal: Cancer.

Addiction: Physical: Bulimia.

Mental: Negativity.

Emotional: Sex.

Comments by Carl G. Jung, Margaret Sanger, Helen Keller,

Sigmund Freud and the Masters.

SECTION 3: PHYSICAL CHALLENGES

The Masters' Introduction.

Abandonment: Abandoned, Also betrayed.

Domination: Mental control. Physical control.

Abuse: Physical: Victim, Abuser. Sexual: Abuser.

Comments by Vladimir Lenin and the Masters.

SECTION 4: EMOTIONAL CHALLENGES

The Masters' Introduction.

Ambivalence: Indecisiveness, Self-worth.

Bigotry: Racial, Class, Gender.

Validation: Insecurity.

Belief Systems: Free Choice, Fanaticism, Responsibility.

Enlightenment: Life purpose, Self-image, Confidence, Self-worth.

Comments by Mohandas K. Gandhi, Oscar Wilde,

Pope John XXIII, and Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.

THE MASTERS' SUMMARY

WHAT ARE LIFE LESSONS?

"Life lessons are the scenarios, large and small, that enable you to learn who you are as a soul, and what abilities you have when you accept your unconditionally loving essence."

The Ascended Masters

This book is about the lessons we freely chose, when we were in soul form at Home, prior to incarnating on planet Earth. Each of us has had many such challenges to deal with during our numerous lifetimes. In fact, life lessons fill much of our daily existence. Some are notably bigger and tougher than others. These are not the regular hazards of living, but the specific issues that we decided we wanted to learn more about, and that were appropriate for our special attention.

People who are interested in reincarnation, especially those who have taken a course in life-between-lives hypnotic regression, may have experienced the scene when souls at Home on the Other Side are planning their next incarnation and choose lessons they seek to undertake during their next human life. Opportunities for such lessons are plentiful on the planet Earth—a unique world made with an equally balanced duality between positive and negative energies.

At the beginning, incarnating souls choose a lesson or two until they have gathered enough wisdom to specialize. The lessons chosen by a soul, with help from its soul mates and council of spirit guides, further its interests and skills. Eventually a few mature souls may develop an overall theme for their multitude of lifetimes on Earth and other planets. This has been helpfully illustrated for us in soul interviews we have conducted in the past. For example, the soul of the versatile singer Ella Fitzgerald had a longtime passion to work on the development of sound, music, and human speech. A very different ambition was expressed by the soul of U.S. General George Patton, who concentrated on developing his skill as a warrior—from the days of Genghis Kahn, to the Roman Empire, to the Napoleonic era, and all the way across the centuries to World War II.

Often equipped with a broad-based plan in mind, the soul will next choose specific lessons, the knowledge and mastery of which will further its overall goal. The Masters go further, explaining that our possessing mere knowledge of a situation—life as an astronaut, for example—is not adequate, spiritually speaking. True wisdom is satisfactorily revealed only when the individual soul's observation is based on participation—the person becomes an astronaut.

The specific lessons are often generic: one soul chooses to experience ambivalence, another asks for inhumane treatment, a third desires to become negativity itself. Only after the soul has actually incarnated on Earth does the challenge corresponding with the selected lesson become apparent. Ambivalence, for example, may be felt in a soul's human orientation from birth as a homosexual; inhumanity is experienced when a man is tortured and shot; becoming negativity is manifest in experiencing the paranoid mind of a brutal dictator from the inside.

The life lessons souls choose are not delivered through the mail with a polite note of explanation. They come, for example, on the wedding night when the wife who asked to experience negativity finds out that her new husband was the soul mate who chose to become negativity. We must understand there is a much-needed design in such an arrangement. In order to experience something our soul has freely chosen, frequently there must be another willing soul who may be trusted, under contract, to deliver the experience.

When we spoke with the soul of Adolf Hitler, for instance, we were told that millions of souls agreed—well in advance of the events that brought him to power as the Nazi leader—to play their own positive or negative roles as part of that historic movement in society. Confirmation of this apparently bizarre statement was given to us by the soul of Anne Frank, the Jewish girl diarist, who died in one of Hitler's concentration camps. She said that some of her soul mates, working with her over many lifetimes on Earth, had been recruited as guards in the prison camps. A further interview with the soul of Carl G. Jung added the famous psychiatrist's confirmation that this was how things are organized by the spirit world. Life lessons may be personal, within a group or geographic region, or even worldwide.

Anyone puzzled by mention of interviews of souls, should know that in all our books, Toni Ann Winninger, a clear-channel psychic, has channeled the answers to our questions that have been given us by a wide variety of souls on the Other Side. Peter Watson Jenkins, a writer and hypnotist, asked the questions and edited and organized each book. A group of senior spirit guides, the Ascended Masters, provided the structure of this book and chose most of the participants for this study of life lessons.

Life lessons are freely chosen by the souls themselves. Be advised, this freedom is vitally important to the spirit community. Just as a soul freely chooses to explore human situations, it may in total freedom select an overall purpose of the specific lessons for each lifetime. Nothing is ever laid down that souls are obliged to do. These lessons will come along to be dealt with in that lifetime as may be most suitably arranged by the spirit world. Lessons may or may not have been actually learned by the time that specific human life comes to an end. There are no dire repercussions or compulsion to repeat one should a soul fail to undertake or complete a lesson. Most likely, the soul will seek to deduce the meaning of its experience with help from its advisory council when it returns Home. If that solution proves elusive, the soul may desire to repeat the lesson in another life, to fulfill its own broad agenda.

We will let this book answer many of the questions arising from our brief introduction, but it must be clearly understood that the soul enters with complete freedom of choice when making these arrangements—although, when life lessons eventually appear, it must face them without any memory of their having been pre-chosen. When faced by a lesson, the soul still has freedom whether to undertake it or not. There is no task imposed on a soul that it is obliged to do. Lessons are taken on because the soul wants to further its long-term plans and develop its wisdom of how positive and negative energy can be compared.

But why have lessons in the first place? We discuss this issue in detail in our book Exploring Reincarnation. Briefly, the essence of Source energy—the eternal creative energy of the universe—is perfected as unconditional love. Source knew itself only as composed wholly of positive energy, and sought to discover the fullness of this perfection by comparing its magnificence with that which is not positive. In other words, it sought to hold up a mirror to show its true nature. In order to achieve its goal, Source equipped planet Earth as a duality where negative energy might readily be compared with positive energy, and where these opposing forces are equally balanced within Earth's third dimension. Our planet is the only such duality in the universe.

The duality of Earth provides the ability of the soul to experience not only the ultimate positivity—heaven—but also the ultimate negativity—hell. Both of them are merely states of mind on Earth and do not exist elsewhere. Within the whole, trillion-strong, universal community of souls, only a small fraction are incarnate on Earth at any moment. Some souls take the fast track to wisdom by asking for many lessons; others may choose to visit Earth only once or twice; some never come here at all. There is plenty of activity in the spirit world. Planet Earth is not the center of spirit life, but it is a distinctive and useful workshop.

As authors, we have been greatly helped by the Masters in planning the contents of a book that needs a good balance to succeed. At their suggestion we brought in a handful of seasoned souls, well known in human history and expert in issues raised by the stories told by other souls to illustrate the scope of life lessons. We thank all our friends who have contributed so willingly to give this study the substance of their personal experiences and share their wisdom with us.

Answering someone's question one day, the Masters outlined our purpose as souls in coming to live on planet Earth, and how that sense of purpose can affect our lives:

"Emotions are reactions to events around you. The majority of them are negative, since your life lessons come to you mostly in negative situations. You are learning what you are (unconditional love), by experiencing what you are not (negativity). Learn from these emotional signals what you do not wish to repeat. Use your intention to bring positive patterns into your daily life."

Some of the trials we face are personal, one-of-a-kind ways of showing us the brash face of negativity in a discrete personal situation. Others may be more complex and may involve a multitude of souls. It is our experience that we all learn more easily when teaching is presented in story form. This survey of life lessons could not have been presented so meaningfully if it were not for the 40 souls, drawn from the four corners of the globe, who willingly told us their stories about the lessons they learned—or failed to learn. Once again, as in our How I Died book, we had reports from the Masters of a large crowd of souls earnestly pressing their case to be included among those chosen to tell the story of their latest life lessons.

We fully understand that some readers may have little patience with our claim of authenticity. We are, of course, quite sure that Peter Watson Jenkins asked the questions of real souls, and Toni Ann Winninger dictated a translation of their channeled replies. We were actually there, and neither of us tolerates pretense in our work. But to readers who were not present at any of our innumerable recording sessions, we say: Don't concentrate overmuch on the reliability of channeling. Take the message of this book and apply it to your own life. That's where the benefit will be felt. That's how you will know whether this book tells the truth or not.

There is one aspect of our work on life lessons that we like to point out, especially to religious folk. The big question that ties the faithful in knots—from Sunday school teachers to seasoned archbishops alike—and never fails to make them sound unconvincing, reads: Why do bad things happen to good people? We have the complete answer here. The bad things were chosen in freedom by the soul itself, as an actor chooses to play the part of the underdog or the villain in a play. It is accepted by the soul as an experience of negativity that shows up more brilliantly the wonder of unconditional love—the essence of the soul itself.

Finally, to our friends at Home on the Other Side, a big thank you for the confidence you have placed in us over the past decade.

Peter Watson Jenkins

Toni Ann Winninger

The Expert Commentators

This book is the product of the Ascended Masters' thinking and planning. Their success in creating other books with graphic personal illustrations provided by souls from all over the world led us to repeat the approach. There were very many souls on hand at Home willing to tell their stories. But in as complex and as challenging a book as this has been from the outset, we were in need of well-qualified commentators who were able to take a broader view of the issues involved than one soul telling its personal story could encompass. The Masters opted to give several comments of their own, and ended up bringing in the souls of ten leading figures in several different fields, whose experience made it easy for them to advise us. We enjoyed meeting with them again.

For changes in the ecology of Mother Earth we had help from Rachel Carson (1907-1964), who shared her wisdom with us. She had appeared first in our book Talking with Twentieth-Century Women. Next was a friend from Talking with Leaders of the Past, Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948). The Mahatma was brought in twice: to discuss societal life lessons and to share his experience of bigotry. The tough topic of depression brought comments from Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), also in our Leaders book and the very first soul we ever interviewed. Addiction was commented on by newcomer Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Dealing with maternal depression was another friend from the Leaders book, Margaret Sanger (1879-1966). Handicaps were the lot of Helen Keller (1880-1968), who was deaf and blind but learned to speak. We interviewed her first in the Women's book. To shed light on large group enterprises, we were helped by a newcomer to our books, the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924).

Another old friend from Leaders was Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), who shared his well-documented experience of ambivalence. Pope John XXIII (1881-1963), also in Leaders, helped us with belief systems. Enlightenment was Siddhartha Gautama's topic. This was our first contact with the Buddha (c. 563-483 BCE).

We thank them, and all the individual souls who took part, for their invaluable help. We are all truly indebted to our friends the Ascended Masters for giving a meaningful, easy-to-understand account of the life lessons that souls, like you and us, incarnated in the unique duality of planet Earth have freely chosen to learn.

Our Collections of Soul Interviews

We hope very much that this book will whet your appetite for our books of soul interviews. They are: Talking with Leaders of the Past, Talking with Twentieth-Century Men, Talking with Twentieth-Century Women, and on the theme of our soul's death and transition Home, How I Died (and what I did next).

They are all described in detail at the end of this book.

SECTION 1: PROSPERITY

The Masters' Introduction

Poverty, Self-imposed: Armando (Brazil)

Ecological: Charhol (Amazon basin)

Comment: Rachel Carson

Societal: Amita (Mumbai, India)

Comment: M.K. Gandhi (Indian leader)

Wealth, Born into wealth: Shahir (Oman)

Worked for wealth: George (USA)

Immediate wealth: Mary Beth (Canada)

Creativity, Manifestation: Maximo (Mexico)

Entrepreneurship: Eslithia (Thailand)

The Masters' Introduction

Prosperity is a term that turns heads. To many, it implies that the lifetime has been a financial success. To others, it is something they invest a lot of time trying to secure, while sensing they are not able to manage and then falling into depression because they cannot achieve it. The word is synonymous with being successful or thriving.

As a life lesson, prosperity is much more than that. It is part of the Earth's duality and includes the positive (having physical wealth) and the negative (being in poverty). Prosperity also comes into play in lessons dealing with creativity, both for financial gain and for human enrichment.

Eight souls recount their dealings with prosperity as a lesson, and two expert souls comment on the global life lessons that shaped two of these lives. Sit back and ponder if you have chosen a little bit of prosperity to influence your current life.

In this section we examine poverty that is self-imposed, or results from ecological change or social pressure. We are helped by the souls of Armando (Brazil), Charhol (Amazon basin), and Amita (Mumbai, India). Two expert comments are by Rachel Carson, the pioneer environmentalist, and Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian civil rights leader.

Next, we look at wealth. This is examined in three areas of experience: being born into wealth, working to develop wealth, and receiving wealth immediately. Souls helping us are: Shahir (Oman), George (USA), and Mary Beth (Canada).

Finally, creativity is presented as manifestation and as entrepreneurship. These are explained by the souls of Maximo (Mexico) and Eslithia (Thailand).

POVERTY: Self-imposed

Armando (Brazil)

Armando, the Masters tell me that you came from Brazil.

Yes, I spent this particular life in Brazil. I was born into a very wealthy family. We had a large cattle ranch and employed a lot of people. My mother and father brought the ranch up from nothing. Neither of them came from wealth but they decided that they were going to provide everything for my two brothers and me. I was the eldest boy and was allowed to do anything I wanted; I had fast cars and women. I spent no time involved in the things of the ranch because my parents did not seem to think I was intelligent enough. I was bright enough to let them think that! So I did not have any responsibilities and could just go off and spend money.

Was the ranch profitable?

Very profitable. It was a large enterprise where we had to purchase good breeding stock and make sure that the stock beefed up so it would come back for slaughter and go on to the packing houses.

Which market were you selling to?

Europe, and also throughout South America.

Good quality beef?

It was the best; it was top grade, solicited by the best of the restaurants and food purveyors.

This doesn't sound like you were an expert on poverty!

Ah, but I became one when I was about 23. My parents had birthed me while they were in the midst of developing the ranch, so then for a period of 10 to 12 years they did not have any time for amoré. So my brothers did not come along until 10 to 12 years later. They were in their early teens while I was out, driving my car about, going to rallies, and everything of that nature.

As can happen in such a situation, I was suddenly left all alone in the world. There was a huge fire at the ranch. My parents and my brothers were trapped in the farmhouse and couldn't get out. So from being a totally independent, totally inconsiderate, totally careless individual, I was suddenly an orphan and responsible for a million-dollar business.

But you had workers to help you?

We had workers to help, but